More retail development proposed for Stow's Kent Road

Wednesday

Sep 13, 2017 at 5:35 PMSep 14, 2017 at 6:48 AM

By Ellin WalshReporter

STOW — More shopping options may be in the offering in the Kent Road corridor.

A proposal for a retail development and convenience store/gas station across the street from the Stow Community Shopping Center was given a thumbs-up by the city’s planning commission. While planners endorsed the site plan and a request for a conditional zoning certificate, the plan still needs the approval of Stow City Council, which is scheduled to consider the proposal on Oct. 12. The developer is eyeing a March 2018 groundbreaking, said a representative of the development group.

What’s proposed, according to Stow Planning Director Rob Kurtz, is a retail development consisting of a 26,000-square-foot multi-tenant retail building, a 5,250-square-foot multi-tenant retail building and a 5,280-square-foot convenience store/gas station on the north side of Kent Road east of the Mission Baptist Church and across the street from a shopping center anchored by Target.

Ken Knuckles, vice president of the Development Management Group LLC of Nashville, said his client, Anchor Retail Solutions, would be the developer for the project. Knuckles said Anchor would purchase three parcels of land and consolidate those into one, approximately 11 acres in size. Knuckles said Anchor is negotiating leases with a number of tenants but he declined to say what entities could move in. "None of the tenants that we’re proposing here, whether they be retail or restaurant, to my knowledge, would be considered a non-permitted use," Knuckles said.

As proposed, Knuckles told planners the 26,000-square-foot building would be erected in the back, with one tenant occupying 18,000 square feet and then three to four smaller retail tenants filling out the remainder. The 5,200-square-foot building envisioned for the southeast corner would probably be a two-tenant structure, Knuckles said, likely retail and a restaurant. The convenience store is anticipated to rise in the southeast corner, he said.

Three access points to the development are proposed, according to Kurtz, with the main entrance located across from the existing western entrance to the Stow Community Shopping Center. He said a new traffic signal is anticipated. Two right-in and right-out entrances are suggested on the eastern and western ends of the development.

"I’m very concerned about the commercial creep," Leah McMillan, a Heatherwood Court resident, told the planning commission. McMillan said her bedroom would be 600 feet from the back of the proposed development. She lamented the fact that "the woods are disappearing" and said she already experiences noise and light pollution from the Stow Community Shopping Center. McMillan also reported existing water drainage issues.

According to Knuckles, 25 feet of buffering is typically required between residential and commercial development; in this case, however, Knuckles said there would be "near 600 feet" of heavily wooded land which would remain undisturbed open space between the back of the development and adjacent residential uses to the north. He said water runoff from the development would be routed to a basin and a series of underground pipes in the parking lot to provide more storage than that required by ordinance and be released at a slower rate than required by ordinance. Addressing light levels, Kurtz said the requirement in Stow’s code is that lighting, as measured in footcandles, must be zero at the property line if adjacent to a residential district. The proposed plan shows that it complies with that standard, according to Kurtz.

Charles Lambach, a trustee of Mission Baptist Temple, said the congregation "is going to see nothing but shopping center." Lambach said he’d prefer a bigger buffer than the 10 feet proposed between the development and church in order to enhance noise and light abatement. Kurtz said the required setback for a parking lot adjacent to another commercial district is 10 feet. The applicant is also proposing a 6-foot privacy fence and landscaping.

A plan for a Meijer store in the same corridor was revised in early 2017 to reduce the store size and eliminate the gas station/convenience component of the project.

Email: ewalsh@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-541-9419

Twitter: @ EllinWalsh_RPC

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